Enlightenment

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[X] [Work] Medical Pavilion - grinding up medicine and providing basic healing
[X] [Contact] Jade Beauty - one of the sect's fairies counts Yon as a reliable lacke
 
[X] [Work] Scriptorium Complex - copying out basic texts
[X] [Contact] Jade Beauty - one of the sect's fairies counts Yon as a reliable lackey
[X] [Treasure] Razor Palm Technique - a will of iron produces a sword body
[X] [Treasure] Diamond Body Manual - a clarified soul should be housed within an unbreakable body
[X] [Treasure] Iron Kettle Stomach - the first fundamental of life is digestion, all else follows
 
[X] [Work] Scriptorium Complex - copying out basic texts
[X] [Contact] Jade Beauty - one of the sect's fairies counts Yon as a reliable lackey
[X] [Treasure] Razor Palm Technique - a will of iron produces a sword body
[X] [Treasure] Diamond Body Manual - a clarified soul should be housed within an unbreakable body
[X] [Treasure] Iron Kettle Stomach - the first fundamental of life is digestion, all else follows

The name for this has me sold! I like the idea of being swole and honestly this whole quest needs gas! Cut the brake lines and get our guy jumped to build character and get good
 
[X] [Work] Medical Pavilion - grinding up medicine and providing basic healing
[X] [Contact] Jade Beauty - one of the sect's fairies counts Yon as a reliable lackey
[X] [Treasure] Strangling Vine Seed - the indomitable and deadly weed has much to teach
[X] [Treasure] Dreaming Orchid Elixir Recipe - a potent draught for focusing the mind and enhancing the body
[X] [Treasure] Iron Kettle Stomach - the first fundamental of life is digestion, all else follows
 
[X] [Work] Medical Pavilion - grinding up medicine and providing basic healing
[X] [Contact] Jade Beauty - one of the sect's fairies counts Yon as a reliable lackey
[X] [Treasure] Strangling Vine Seed - the indomitable and deadly weed has much to teach
[X] [Treasure] Dreaming Orchid Elixir Recipe - a potent draught for focusing the mind and enhancing the body
[X] [Treasure] Iron Kettle Stomach - the first fundamental of life is digestion, all else follows
 
[X] [Work] Medical Pavilion - grinding up medicine and providing basic healing
[X] [Contact] Jade Beauty - one of the sect's fairies counts Yon as a reliable lackey
[X] [Treasure] Strangling Vine Seed - the indomitable and deadly weed has much to teach
[X] [Treasure] Dreaming Orchid Elixir Recipe - a potent draught for focusing the mind and enhancing the body
[X] [Treasure] Iron Kettle Stomach - the first fundamental of life is digestion, all else follows
 
[X] [Work] Medical Pavilion - grinding up medicine and providing basic healing
[X] [Contact] Jade Beauty - one of the sect's fairies counts Yon as a reliable lackey
[X] [Treasure] Strangling Vine Seed - the indomitable and deadly weed has much to teach
[X] [Treasure] Dreaming Orchid Elixir Recipe - a potent draught for focusing the mind and enhancing the body
[X] [Treasure] Iron Kettle Stomach - the first fundamental of life is digestion, all else follows

Bing bong!
 
Bonus points for working in the scriptorium with razor palms is we can make a pun about a scroll saw- therefore rendering this character into the highest form of literary achievement before we leave character creation.
 
[X] [Work] Scriptorium Complex - copying out basic texts
[X] [Contact] Jade Beauty - one of the sect's fairies counts Yon as a reliable lackey
[X] [Treasure] Razor Palm Technique - a will of iron produces a sword body
[X] [Treasure] Diamond Body Manual - a clarified soul should be housed within an unbreakable body
[X] [Treasure] Iron Kettle Stomach - the first fundamental of life is digestion, all else follows
 
Jaguar2234 said:
If medical pavilion wins with razor hands, we could use it as a scalpel, that would be cool,
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All joking aside, razor hand as a menial tool usable in so many different ways for our sect scut work actually makes it feel more interesting. A skinning knife, a scalpel, cutting parchment/paper or clipping plants etc. Given how sword bodies and swords tend to be depicted in Xanxia (muh sword intent), having such a multifaceted and utilitarian sort of use for the technique makes it seem like Yon could probably develop it in a fairly unique way.
 
Let's see where we're at
Adhoc vote count started by Academia Nut on Mar 7, 2025 at 3:37 PM, finished with 63 posts and 50 votes.
[work] [contact] [treasure]
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[X] [Work] Medical Pavilion - grinding up medicine and providing basic healing
[X] [Contact] Genius Outsider - a nobody with surprising talent leans on Yon for favours
[X] [Treasure] Tome of Enlightenment - the Spirit Path is long, but this helps along the way
[X] [Treasure] Diamond Body Manual - a clarified soul should be housed within an unbreakable body
[X] [Treasure] Iron Kettle Stomach - the first fundamental of life is digestion, all else follows
 
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birdmaster01 said:
[] [Work] Medical Pavilion - grinding up medicine and providing basic healing
[] [Contact] Genius Outsider - a nobody with surprising talent leans on Yon for favours
[] [Treasure] Tome of Enlightenment - the Spirit Path is long, but this helps along the way
[] [Treasure] Diamond Body Manual - a clarified soul should be housed within an unbreakable body
[] [Treasure] Iron Kettle Stomach - the first fundamental of life is digestion, all else follows
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You are missing the x's in your boxes fyi
 
Character Creation 2
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] [Work] Medical Pavilion - grinding up medicine and providing basic healing
    [X] [Contact] Jade Beauty - one of the sect's fairies counts Yon as a reliable lackey
    [X] [Treasure] Dreaming Orchid Elixir Recipe - a potent draught for focusing the mind and enhancing the body
    [X] [Treasure] Diamond Body Manual - a clarified soul should be housed within an unbreakable body
    [X] [Treasure] Iron Kettle Stomach - the first fundamental of life is digestion, all else follows

    There is a role within sect politics that young men covet and wise men fear: the boytoy. When a great beauty or powerful heiress finds the quality of her suitors lacking, she might attempt to encourage them to do better by rousing their jealousy against another man by selecting a target to demonstrate public affection to. Because involving anyone with actual power in such petty politics is rarely a good idea, the boytoy is thus a man of significantly lower status, both to minimize political entanglements and to maximize the insult.

    Yon had unfortunately been forced to learn that a flawless jade beauty cupping his chin was not worth a young master's fist breaking said chin later.

    Young Lady Va had made him her boytoy three times. A more foolish man would think that meant she actually liked him, when Yon actually knew that it was a sign that he was both reliable and durable.

    To be fair, the first time had been an accident because her fiance at the time was an idiot. Yon gave the young lady preferential treatment when he was working the apothecary desk because she was politically well connected. Also because she was hot, he was sixteen when it first happened so of course that was a consideration. But mostly because of politics. Unfortunately her suitor had decided that Yon was getting too close to his bride-to-be and gave him a solid thrashing. Had that been it, that would have been it, but the absolute moron had to go and publicly declare that it was because she was showing too much affection.

    A young master trading pointers with some outer disciple nobody because the man was acting too friendly with his fiance was nothing. Unfortunately for him he had managed to imply that Young Lady Va was being unfaithful without any proof, resulting in such a scandal that their engagement was called off and he was shuffled off to a satellite branch of the sect for his family to save face.

    The flawless beauty had thus made sure to rub salt in his wounds before he was packed away by making sure to publicly fawn over the convalescing Yon in the infirmary. She had also bluntly and viciously dispelled any illusions about what was going on, but she also made sure that when a new batch of suitors began to vie for her attention that Yon would be able to exit the situation with only mild bruising.

    She still came to him from favours in the medical pavilion because he had proven himself discrete and reliable by not making a fuss. He got clobbered a few times for his troubles, but she also made sure that he got his hands on a copy of the Diamond Body Manual.

    A few months later she had been in a rather explosive row with her latest suitor over the fact that he was blatantly having sex with his servants. Again, nothing that normally one would care about, if not for the fact that he was clearly trying to get her outraged enough to sleep with him despite the fact that they weren't even officially engaged. Va had thus asked - ordered - Yon to attend a tea party she was hosting and then publicly requested - demanded under threat of death - that Yon touch up her cosmetics for her.

    Yon had thankfully been able to keep his teeth rooted in place via Diamond Body, even if he had been forced to eat through a straw for a month afterward.

    Things had been mostly quiet after that point for almost two years, with everyone coming to the conclusion that Yon had no designs upon the jade beauty and that he was just a particularly reliable lackey who could be trusted to take a punch and not whine about it. If the Young Lady Va ever ran a perfect porcelain finger over his common skin, it was a calculated insult to someone else and the best response was to ignore it.

    And then the one suitor who had managed to get into a somewhat stable relationship had discovered a copy of the Treatise of Ten Thousand Blossoms within the Deep Archives and been promoted outside of her league. Frustrating to be sure, but as was a trend it seemed that her suitors were political dunces so the fine young master had offered her a pity concubinage.

    Young Lady Va had escalated rather severely after this, and while in-between suitors she clearly wanted every eligible young man to know exactly how little she thought of them not properly pursuing her hand. Yon was pretty sure that he was going to die this time, but refusal meant that he would definitely die messily and painfully in an immediate fashion.

    Because, the thing was that everyone knew how Va used Yon, so the only way to get a reaction from the rumour mill was to increase her flirting and fawning to an outrageous degree. It was getting to the point where even other low status men might start picking fights with him just to be a boytoy that got the kind of attention he was getting. It was actually getting to the point where there were rumours that the Young Lady Va was planning an Affair of the Handmaid's Climax. He really hoped not, because if she did pull such a stunt her father would undoubtedly make him disappear, and because such salacious stories had lost their luster for him. He felt bad not only for the men at the centre of those stories for being put in such an awful situation, but also for the mortal handmaids who had even less say in the whole thing.

    As such, when Young Lady Va swept into the apothecary desk where Yon was working and demanded, "Have you heard the rumours?" he had only one response.

    "Most common was that you sat on my desk and put a foot on my thigh, most outrageous is that you walk around without undergarments so that I can use my tongue at your leisure," Yon replied deadpan.

    Va blinked her perfectly shadowed eyelids and barked angrily, "Did you strangle- wait, no! Not important!"

    Yon's eyebrows nearly left his face in alarm at whatever it was that overrode her concern about people not gossiping about her correctly. Seeing his alarm, she leaned in scandalously close and hiss-whispered, "The Envoy!"

    "What?" Yon whispered back, now very alarmed. There was a limited number of people who could have that title, and all of them would upend life in the sect if true.

    Glancing about, Va glared daggers at the junior disciples who were grinding up Five Bounties Jewel Herbs nearby, and Yon waved his subordinates to leave and shut the front door. Mildly scandalous, but Yon was just high enough up in the Medical Pavilion that he could bullshit it as a private medical consult. Actually, given the likely context, Yon was probably going to be making medicine for the Young Lady, so it wasn't necessarily untrue either.

    "So it started a few days ago within the core disciples and has been picking up momentum, but if it hasn't reached the outer sect yet then I might still have an advantage," she whispered quietly to him. While Yon was very much focused on what she was saying and how she was saying it, he couldn't help but be slightly entranced by the musk and floral blend to the perfume she was wearing. "At first it was just 'an envoy', and anyone who took stock of the situation thought it might be a diplomat from another Great Sect or possibly a surprise Royal Inspection. But the elders haven't been quashing it, and now the rumours are that they are even waking up some of the old monsters from their meditations."

    "Wait, they wouldn't-" Yon began to state in dawning awe and horror.

    "A Celestial Envoy," Va hissed.

    The Celestial Envoys were things of legend, representatives from another realm descending with the commands of the Gods. The stories went that sometimes they brought with them great boons, sometimes utter annihilation, but always tremendous change and upheaval.

    "It can't be true!" Yon vehemently whispered back.

    "Then why aren't they denying it?" Va countered. Her eyes then darted around the shelves and said, "Can you make it?"

    'It' being the Dreaming Orchid Elixir, one of the most potent formulas of reasonable availability for the sect. Yon was one of the few outer disciples who could reliably make it, in part because he could taste the ingredients for potency without being sickened by them due to the unique circumstances of his enlightenment.

    Before Yon could point out the problem, Va added on, "My family will fucking buy all the ingredients you need."

    Yon would have been less surprised had she simply slapped him rather than curse, and he had to compose himself for a moment before he said, "Even if we use sect supplies, we're missing an ingredient."

    "Which one?" Va demanded.

    Which ingredient is missing?
    [ ] Blood of a Living Forge - a hunt will be needed for this dangerous spirit beast
    [ ] Umbral Crescents - these toxic fungi are found in the lightless crypts of the Deep Archives
    [ ] Sarcophagus Sphagnum - this desiccating moss can be found in the moors nearby
    [ ] Quicksilver Honey - made by prism bees along the mountain flanks of the Sect
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Quicksilver Honey - made by prism bees along the mountain flanks of the Sect

    Honey good, and this lets us fall off a precarious mountain ledge. Also, it means getting attacked by BEEEEEES, but also maybe befriending the hive and learning to attack other people with BEEEEEES. Fun times!
     
    [X] Quicksilver Honey - made by prism bees along the mountain flanks of the Sect

    mercury bees sounds like a fuckin nightmare. let's see if theyre as deadly as they sound
     
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